


Domesticity

by canismaj0ris



Series: Kanera Week 2020 [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Chopper is not there because I forgot, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Ghost Crew as Family, He'd be avoiding all of this anyway, Trans Ezra Bridger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:40:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26235016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canismaj0ris/pseuds/canismaj0ris
Summary: Love Languages were created to explain the different ways that people show love to those around them. They are: physical touch, acts of service, quality time, words of affirmation and receiving gifts.Hera and Kanan have been together long enough that these are routine - but that doesn’t make them less important.And Kanan has a plan to prove that.
Relationships: Ezra Bridger & Kanan Jarrus, Kanan Jarrus & Sabine Wren, Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Series: Kanera Week 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903717
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46
Collections: Kanera Week 2020





	Domesticity

**Author's Note:**

> Content notes:  
> \- mentions of Kanan's backstory  
> \- mentions of gender dysphoria, in no detail and not involving a POV character  
> \- badly used Mando'a  
> \- some of this is just vaguely out of character but I refuse to believe that Kanan, raised in the Jedi Temple, which is objectively a communal society, wouldn’t have a streak of domesticity hidden not-so-deep in his personality.

The ship was finally quiet, no kids running around, no Lasat causing problems, no calls coming through from somewhere or another. It was a peace they didn’t often get, and one Kanan had looked forward to for hours - days even. 

He didn’t bother knocking before he entered Hera’s quarters, kicking off his boots as the door closed behind him. 

Hera was sat on her bunk, leaning back on the pillows, datapad held up in front of her face. Her nose was scrunched up as she read, her focus so complete that she didn’t react to Kanan entering the room, even though she must have noticed. 

Kanan padded over quietly, sitting on the end of the bed so he could pull her legs over his lap. 

Hera didn’t even look up from her pad. “Hello, love. Everyone in bed?” 

He ran his thumb over her ankle in little repeated circles. 

“Just about,” he said quietly, not wanting to break the quiet feeling hanging over the room. “Zeb is walking Kallus back, and I dropped the kid back in his bunk.” 

Hera laughed as she continued to flick through her notes. “Didn’t manage to beat you at being awake, then?” 

He hummed instead of replying, leaning back against the cool metal wall. His eyes flickered shut, fingers still running over smooth skin. 

Hera’s voice was light and beautiful even in her teasing. “Looks like he only just lost.” 

A hand looped behind his neck, gently pulling him sideways until he was lying on his side. His forehead pressed against Hera’s thigh and a hand reached to scratch against his scalp. 

The noise he made was one of complete bliss, followed by a huff of frustration when the hand moved away. 

“Come on love, come here,” Hera said quietly, leading him with a hand under his arm, until Kanan lay directly beside her, head on her shoulder, arm over her waist. “Want to watch some more _Starstreaks_?” 

It took a moment for him to process the question. “I thought you were doing work?” 

“It can wait until the morning.” Hera pressed a kiss to his temple as she scrolled through the options on the datapad. “Right now, I just want to spend time with you.” 

Kanan melted further into her, but almost immediately felt more awake. It had been weeks since they’d managed time to themselves, and months more since it had been move than a few stolen minutes between jobs or wrapped in post-mission exhaustion. 

His arm wrapped tighter across her body. 

He’d missed it. 

“As long as you’re sure.” 

“I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t,” Hera pointed out quickly. “So, _Starstreaks_?” 

“Ehhh, I’d rather watch something with a little more action.” Kanan reached out to flick the screen further, pulling up the other series they were watching. They were almost all long-running series they hadn’t seen before, with a few comfort comedies thrown in. Nothing caught his attention. 

“What? Don’t want something that’ll make you cry?” Hera asked, making Kanan snort. 

“I don’t think we’ve ever watched something that makes me cry.” When Hera broke into laughter, he did too. “I’m serious! We haven’t!” 

Hera shushed him, putting her fingers ever so slightly over his mouth. “Okay, okay! I don’t believe you, but the kids are asleep and we don’t want to wake them up.” 

Kanan hummed to himself, looking over the list. “Are we actually going to watch it, or are we just using it for background noise?” 

He felt Hera shrug more than he saw it. “I don’t mind.” 

Nodding to himself, Kanan hovered over _West of Jeddha_ , an action film old enough that he could remember smuggling it into the Creche with Cal and Ferren. He didn’t say anything, just waiting for Hera to react. 

Hera knew all of the layers of what he wasn’t asking. She settled back against the pillows, reaching to tap it herself. 

She pulled him closer as the film loaded through. 

The opening monologue was one Kanan knew maybe a little too well, mumbling the words as they were spoken in that one Outer Rim accent used in the films, the one that barely covered the actors’ own Core Worlds accents. 

“Nothing we did could have saved us. People said we had to hope.” His voice dropped lower, crackling over the next words with over-exaggerated emotion. “No. Hope would get us nowhere. What we had to do was _fight_.” 

Hera scoffed. “I hate that line. You might need to fight, but you still need hope. Otherwise you’d burn through your energy for the cause without accomplishing anything.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Kanan rolled his eyes, jabbing her in the side. “You say that every time we watch this.” 

She hummed in quiet agreement, watching the opening credits roll. Kanan shuffled to get more comfortable before he spoke up again. “How was your day?” 

“Busy,” Hera huffed to herself, reaching up to scratch her nails across the back of his head. Her fascination with his hair had its benefits. “Reports, meetings, planning. The same things I do every day, but still exhaustingly different.” 

“That’s the nature of rebellion.” He didn’t bother keeping the infuriation out of his voice. 

Hera shoved him slightly, fingers tickling across his side. “How was training?” 

“It’s going well, I think,” he replied with a small frown, “Ezra learns quickly, but his focus is… well, it’s not great, is it?.” Again, Hera hummed in her agreement, nodding. “But I know he’s trying, and it seems to be going well, so I can’t complain.” 

“Good,” Hera turned to press her lips to his forehead. “I’m glad, I was worried how it would go today after so many missions without a training session.” 

Kanan shrugged. “Hey, every mission’s practice, even if it’s not the kind we’re hoping for.” 

They fell quiet again, and Kanan let him become absorbed in the characters on screen. One, a monk who cared for the Temple of the Whills, was staring across a long, winding river covered in brightly dyed flowers. Around him were crowds of people, enjoying the festival of light and colour. 

“If we ever get out of this,” he said quietly, not wanting to speak the words out loud, “we should visit Jeddha.” 

There was a pause, but he could feel Hera watching him. “Did you go there? Before?” 

‘ _Before_ ’ was a tenuous concept, but one he felt settle around him. Something bubbled in his stomach, a feeling of deep sadness he took hold of for only a moment before releasing it with a long exhale. 

“No. We talked about it, how we should go so I could visit the Whills - every Padawan back then did, at some point during their training - but, well…” He didn’t mean to trail off, but he couldn’t say out loud what he needed to say, “You know.” 

Hera’s arms tensed around him, a comforting amount of pressure settling around his body. On screen, the monk had returned to the Temple. Red materials floated around him, caught on the same breeze as the smoke from the burning buildings just out of shot. 

“Are you sleeping in here tonight?” Hera spoke just as quietly as he had done, as if the quiet felt important to her as well. “I might need to be up early, for a briefing with Ahsoka.” 

Kanan just nodded, unwilling to break it. He settled himself further into her warmth, letting comfort wash over him like it rarely did. “Of course. Always.” 

——- 

Kanan woke when Hera stirred, twitching her legs as she finally woke up. He was alert instantly, but Hera took her time before leaving the confined space of their bed with a kiss on his temple. Moments later, she padded out of the room towards the fresher and the highly coveted water shower that was only available when they docked for long enough. 

Kanan, on the other hand, preferred showering later in the day. Maybe it was the difference between her jobs and his, but he would rather wait until he had wrangled his unruly padawan into some kind of physical training, making him sweaty and actually in need of a shower. 

And, besides, he had a plan to get on with. A very, very important plan. 

He pulled himself upright, heading for the collection of clothing that sat in one of Hera’s draws (one that he maybe should count as his, but still didn’t). His trousers would be clean, there was no point replacing them, but he tried to change his shirt every day when he could. 

He left his jumper on the floor where he’d thrown it the night before. It would be fine - it had survived worse. 

He didn’t bother with his boots either, his socked feet padding quietly along the corridor to the living area. 

The kitchen space on the Ghost was cramped, not great for cooking anything complex, but they made sure to keep it well-stocked for the crews’ favourites - including the recent addition of some spices Kanan had never heard of, but Kallus seemed to enjoy. 

From the cupboard, he pulled the fluffy grains Hera preferred, and some of the flatter oats the kids did, settling for mixing the two together in the same pot with plenty of water and some powdered milk. Into there he added some of the seeds he’d left out to soak overnight to turned a sticky, pale pink. They would keep the porridge thick and silky, despite the lack of real milk they had on board. 

As they cooked, the orange and red of the grains mixed with the blue of the milk, washing the whole meal out to a strange pink-grey. He dropped in a collection of sweet-spices at random, along with some sugar they had lying on the side. 

Keeping half an eye on the pot, which was cooking slowly on the low heat, Kanan turned to the hydroponics unit on the opposite side. They had handfuls of berries and a few meiloorun they’d managed to steal from an Imperial supply line a few days before, and honestly, it was impressive any were left. 

Slicing the fruit was meditative, the bubbling happening on the back, the smell of warmth and comfort. He could sink into the feeling of preparing breakfast for his partner, the kids, whatever Zeb counted as. 

Moving meditation was not his favourite, but Kanan could appreciate it on a morning like this. 

The door slid open, revealing a sleep clothing-clad Sabine, still rubbing her eyes. She looked, if anything, a little lost. “Kanan?” 

“Hey, _ad’ika_.” Rex had called Sabine that when they first met, and the look on her face had made Kanan adopt it. He didn’t regret it yet. “Everything alright?” 

Sabine’s hair fluttered as she shook her head, the blue and green of her fringe mixing from its neat lines. “I can’t find my paints.” 

Kanan blinked at her, moving to stir the porridge again. “Isn’t it just in your room?” 

“No!” The amount of pain in her voice - definitely a side effect of just waking up - showed her age in a way she normally didn’t. “I can’t find it anywhere, Kanan. I think Ezra moved it.” 

He shook his head, not doubting it but also unwilling to wake Ezra and Zeb up to find out. He folded his hands over his arms, “You sure he moved it? You haven’t just run out because you keep ‘losing’ paint cans while we’re on missions?” 

If looks could kill, Kanan would be thoroughly dead. “I’m pretty sure I would remember if I’d lost it all.” 

“I’m not doubting that,” he hummed, smiling at her. “How about breakfast before we start looking?” 

Sabine sighed for a moment, but sad down without argument. “Where’s Hera? She might have seen them.” 

Kanan shook his head. “She’s busy today.” 

It took a moment for Sabine to accept, but eventually, she pulled out her datapad and started to scroll through… whatever. Kanan turned back to the porridge, pulling it from the hob just as the door slid open again. 

Hera made a happy noise, wrapping her hands around his waist. “Kanan, I could kiss you.” 

He leaned over to oblige, just as Sabine called back, “Please don’t!” 

Hera laughed pressing a kiss to one of his shoulders instead. “Thank you, love.” 

Kanan just smiled. “I thought I’d give you more time to relax this morning.” 

He ladled up two bowls, carrying them to the table. The door slid open again before he reached them, the padding and force signature reading as Zeb. He would serve himself whether Kanan let him or not, so he didn’t bother rushing back. 

The Lasat was already holding his own bowl and the plate of fruit when Kanan turned around. “Thought I’d give y’ a hand.” 

“Thanks, Zeb. Is Ezra up?” He was already heading to the door, assuming the answer already. 

Zeb laughed. “That would be too easy, wouldn’t it?” 

He could hear Hera and Sabine chipping into the conversation, but quickly shifted himself away. Ezra and Zeb’s room was further down the ship than his and Hera’s, but it wasn’t as if the ship had that much space anyway. 

The door was open, propped open by what looked like one of Sabine’s paint crates. Ezra was on the top bunk, doing a rather good impression of a nesting tooka. 

“Ezra,” Kanan said carefully, moving to nudge the boy awake. He didn’t have to do much physically, the Force bond between them prickling awake as he sent the feeling of morning towards the bundle of fabric and tuft of hair. “Breakfast’s ready - come on.” 

Ezra rolled over to face him. He was still mostly covered, just letting his eyes show above the scrunch of blanket. “Do I have to?” 

Kanan nodded. “Yeah, you do.” He reached out to ruffle Ezra’s hair, making him jump upright, still holding the quilt in front of him. “We should ask Sabine to cut your hair today as well - you said it was annoying you?” 

He nodded. “Yeah, it’s a bit uncomfortable now.” There was nothing in his tone that explained what he meant, but the feeling of discomfort sparking at the other end of their training bond said enough. 

And if _more shielding practice_ was quietly added to Kanan’s list of necessary training, then so be it. 

Kanan nodded. “I’ll let you get ready, then.” He reached down to take the crate - small, but strangely heavy - from where it blocked the door. Ezra wouldn’t get up unless he thought he had privacy, which Kanan already knew. “Come and join us soon, alright?” 

He spotting the washed out, greying binder in the last second before he left. It meant a quick calculation of the training plan, but he tossed it to the fabric pile that was his padawan. “We have Force training today.” 

He stepped out of the door before Ezra could reply, heading back along the corridor. Sabine’s room was locked, so he left the crate outside of her door, hoping beyond hope that Ezra wouldn’t be stupid enough to take it again. 

Then, on his way back to the rec, and the food that was waiting for him, he stepped into the room he and Hera shared. As much as he would like to sit and have breakfast while the food was still warm, there were other things he needed to do to finish his plan of making Hera’s morning easier. 

He made the bed quickly, just pulling the sheet over so it looked straight, before pulling out her flight suit and folding it onto the bed. Hera rarely wore it on a morning, content with being comfortable rather than trying to look the part, but she always wore it to briefings. On top of that, he placed the datapad she’d been reading from the day before. He took a moment, giving it one last look to make sure everything was there, before heading back on his day. 

The kitchen itself was warm and full of laughter, making Kanan feel happiness in his bones. 

“Sabine?” She looked up as Kanan spoke. “I’ve put your paints outside of your bedroom door. They were just in the hall.” 

It was a blatant lie, and Sabine clocked it immediately, but she didn’t argue. “Thanks, Kanan.” 

He smiled, collecting his bowl to sit down and eat. “Hey, since I’ve done you that favour, maybe you can do one for me.” Sabine gave him a hesitant nod, picking at the berries in front of her. “Can you cut Ezra’s hair today?” 

Her face brightened. “Oh, yeah, sure. Easy.” 

Speaking of the nightmare, the door slid open as Ezra stepped in, mostly dressed but still quite dishevelled. He would never have survived growing up at the Jedi Temple. He didn’t greet them past a half-wave, moving straight to the pan and the leftover porridge. 

Hera shot Kanan a look, which made him shrug. If letting him be messy meant Ezra would get out of bed on a morning, he was happy to allow it. 

When Ezra finally reached the table, Hera stood up to give him her seat “I should go and get ready for this briefing. Kanan, can I talk to you for a moment?” 

It was not what he expected, but it was fine. “Sure,” he said with a smile, taking his bowl with him as he went to follow her. No sense leaving the porridge to get any colder. 

Hera led him back to their shared room without any indication of why, just moving her way around their space. She didn’t necessarily look surprised when she saw the clothes ready for her, but her shoulders did melt a little. “You even found my datapad.” 

Kanan shrugged. “It wasn’t hard to find. It was on the floor where you left it.” 

“Still, Kay, you’re doing so much. You _always_ do so much.” 

Kanan stepped forward, pulling her into a hug before she could say anymore. Maybe it was because he needed to hide from the compliments, but he wasn’t comfortable letting Hera talk about him without holding her close. 

Sadly, Hera could read him too well. She knew his deflection tactics and wasn’t about to let them stand. “Do you know how wonderful you are, Kanan? You do so much for this ship, for the crew. For our _family_.” 

They only said it in the quiet of their room, when they knew the others couldn’t hear them. The weight of it settled on his shoulders. 

“I like looking after you all,” Kanan muttered, pulling her closer so he was speaking directly against the top of her head. It was easier to talk like that. “Not that you need it. I like being, well…” 

“Domestic?” Hera laughed, the vibrations making him warm. “I know you do. That doesn’t make it any less good.” 

He shook his head. “I just made breakfast.” 

“You found what I needed for this meeting, just because you could. You helped Sabine find her paints, without causing a fight. You organised a haircut for Ezra before his dysphoria got too bad, before I’d even realised - don’t argue with me, Kanan Jarrus, that isn’t me being hard on myself. Just me saying how incredible you are..” She shuffled backwards so she could see him, but her hands still rested on his arms. “Face it, love, you’ve done a lot this morning. And all of it is so incredibly helpful, I’m not sure how I’ll ever make it up to you.” 

Kanan laughed, shrugging as he pulled her back in to press kisses over her chin and nose, up her cheeks, across her forehead and her lek, skipping the band of her head covering. “Watch the sequel to West of Jeddha with me tonight?” 

Hera winced, which was fair. The sequel was _awful_ , but he could make it up to her later. 

“Please?” 

She huffed as if it was a difficult decision. “Fine! Fine. I’ll do it. But you better find some more meiloorun in the next supply run.” 

His laughter dropped, but not completely. “You have yourself a deal, Captain.” 

Hera looked rather smug. “Good.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feel free to kudos/comment if you enjoyed it <3
> 
> You can also find the fic on my tumblr: gaystardust.tumblr.com  
> Or come chat to me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/majorisbooks  
> You can see more Kanera Week content on their tumblr: https://kaneraweek.tumblr.com/


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